sir82: Thanks for the correction on 1992. Also, your point is exactly what I understood too - one overlap not multiple. So Sanderson would have to started partaking around his 27th birthday to overlap Fred Franz in 1992. Thats my point. Despite what the WT stays (yes, its clear) that is not the message I get from stillins. Like Lost Generation this teaching not only amazes me but I am struck with incredulity when now we have a GenX on the GB that stared partaking when he was 27.

Where the hell does Jesus say the lives of these certain ones would overlap one another ?

I'm I missing something here ?

What I read out of Jesus's words that once the signs of the end times began the generation that witnessed those apparent signs would not

pass away. Anointed or not anointed ! Where they pulled this overlapping generation(s) is made up wholly by themselves.

it seems to me that this "overlapping generation" is less of a lame WTS exegesis as it just a building on top of other generation teachings.To JW's this would be easily absorbed because they already accept that the generation is 'anointed' so no problems there, and they already accept that the signs began in 1914 so no problem there either.

And how many times have we heard the word "contemporanious" used with the generation? This goes all the way back to Russel and right up to the 'contemporanious wicked' generation.

so the generation is not "generations" but rather one "contemporanious generation".

"This all sounds so familiar, this really isn't all that different is it?" To the longtime JW this is not all that much of stretch, but of course to us and anyone with an objective viewpoint we are dumbfounded that anyone could possibly believe such insane rhetoric.

I have always wondered why the reasoning book never update the generation from that of 1914. Well, (as I have said before) I suppose now they don't really need to. The generation today IS STILL the generation of 1914. That is exactly the same.The change is the definition what a generation is.

For all intents and purposes, the reasoning book is now correct again. They need only ad a footnote clarifying that 'generation' is a 'contemporanious generation' and it is this "contemporanious generation" that saw 1914 that will by no means pass away, 'just like we always said.'

Simon Morley: I am struck with incredulity when now we have a GenX on the GB that stared partaking when he was 27.

Or more likely, Mark Sanderson did not begin partaking until AFTER Fred Franz died. This means that he is categorically NOT a member of the "second part" of the "overlapping generation." This is, I believe, the reason why this week's WT came up with the third group of "anointed ones."

Thus, not every anointed person today is included in “this generation” of whom Jesus spoke.- WT, January 15, 2014, p. 31, paragraph 16

LOL!!! @ Oubliette! Marky Mark and the Funcked-uped Bunch!!! When the Big A doesn't come and Herd, Losch and Morris are dead, the new GB's on the block will take over. "Evidently", Jesus meant that the 3rd group would run the corporation while everyone waits for the GT to start invisibly...

I was trying to wrap my head around the latest "update" to it in this week's WT Study article; not to try and understand it--because, hey, it's nonsense--but to make clear to any lurkers how silly and implausible it all is. - Watchtower, January 15, 2014, p. 30-31, paragraphs 14 - 16.

Here's my take on it:

So, apparently, there are now three groups of "anointed" ones:

Those anointed before 1914

Those anointed after 1914, but before the death of the last of those in group #1.

Those anointed after the death of the last person in group #1. (See point #2 above)

Although not mentioned in the article, the key person in this concept is Frederick William Franz. Born in 1893, Franz was baptized in 1913 or 1914, making him part of the first group. He is also presumably the last person of the first group to die. Franz died on December 22, 1992.

According to this week's WT, the first two groups comprise the "this generation" that Jesus mentioned at Matthew 24:34, albeit in an "overlapping" manner. The third group is explicitly NOT part of "this generation."

Careful readers of this week's study article will note that it contained so scriptural references or evidence of any kind to support this new twist on the "Overlapping Generation" idea. It is all just unfounded assertion.

Was there an indication when the overlapping ends? So, the 1914 group touches the next generation, who touches the next, and the next, and next, and so on. It sounds like it may never end. Sort of like a particularly virile venereal disease.